Report Finds Average US Patent Cost US$ 374,000 In 2012

A new quarterly report on patent sales by technology shows that in 2012 the median price paid for issued US patents was US$ 221,000, while the average price paid was US$ 374,000.

The first annual Patent Value Quotient (PVQ), created by an IP services firm called IPOfferings LLC and introduced in November 2012, initially reported only the patent transactions for the first three quarters of 2012. The report has since been updated to include 35 major patent transactions for the full 2012 calendar year.

Patent valuation can be difficult to calculate. Each PVQ report includes the seller and buyer of the portfolio (unless they requested that they be anonymous), the technology of the patents, the number of issued US patents, and the “quotient”, which is derived when the total transaction is divided by the number of issued US patents, according to an IPOfferings press release [doc].

Transactions reported in the PVQ come from publicly announced sales or acquisitions, and those reported to IPOfferings by patent brokers, patent auctions, parties to a transaction, and other sources.

Comments

This is astounding. I’ve been practicing patent/IP law for 30 years, and I’ve never seen or experienced numbers like these. How are they derived?

How about the average fee to a client for a patent valuation? What about the average or typical fee charged to clients “per patent family”? I would really be interested to know this! Any idea where such data may be found?